Psycho Save Us (46 page)

Ya know what
Carl Sagan said
,
the monster said to her playfully.

“If you wish to
make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe,” Spencer
said, turning the big yellow Penske truck onto Kingsley Street.  “Lao Tzu said
the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.  Now that’s two
people who are smarter than you tellin’ you that you gotta start somewhere. 
Got it?”

No reply. 
Spencer didn’t bother pushing it.

The street ahead
was ill-lit, and the houses on either side were somewhere on a scale between
brand new and decrepit, utterly unremarkable except for two that had cameras
posted on the front porch over the door.  Spencer noticed these almost at
once.  Security, and how to circumvent it, had been something of a hobby of his
for the better part of a decade, and so cameras stuck out to him as he was sure
a wrongly mixed oil paint would’ve stuck out to van Gogh.

The thought of
Dmitry’s cocky face returned to him.  It came from out of nowhere, and it made
him hard.  The rain had stopped, but there was electricity in the air.

“I have a
feeling I’m gettin’ closer,” he told the owner of the Voice.  “But there’s
still a ways to go.  I’d recommend creating any confusion that you can.  I’m
gonna need it when I get there.  This truck’s hard to miss.  When I pull this
big bastard up, they’re gonna notice me pretty fast if they’re all still
awake.  You there?  Ya still with me, partner?”

A moment of
silence.

Then,
Yeah
. 
I’m here
. 
And I’m moving
.

Spencer nodded,
smiling.  So far this night had been the most remarkable of his life.  Well,
actually that was debatable, but it certainly ranked.  As he drove down
Kingsley Street, waiting for it to turn into Umway Street as the man at the
plant had said through his ruined teeth, Spencer felt as though he were driving
deeper into the Twilight Zone.  If that were so, then this would be the part
where things turned out to be not to be as they had previously seemed, and
there would be some unexpected moral that come from it, a logic that only made
sense in the realm that Rod Serling occupied.

His stomach
growled.  He was still hungry. 
I need to eat somethin’
.

The time on the
glowing dashboard said 4:37
AM
.  It had been four hours since he ate that burger
at Dodson’s, and his entire plan for the night had changed.  The job he’d meant
to do for Pat was almost totally scrapped, but if he finished with Avery Street
quickly enough he might just be able to grab the necessary RFID chip and the
Dodge Dart and be out of town with some extra scratch.

Up ahead, he spotted
a yellow sign that said Umway Street was just a mile up.

Spencer smiled,
and whistled the familiar theme song.  “
You unlock this door with the key of
imagination.  Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension
of sight, a dimension of
mind
.  You're moving into a land of both shadow
and substance, of things and ideas.  That’s the signpost up ahead.  Your next
stop, the
Twilight Zone!”

Kaley rolled
over onto vomit that she didn’t recall vomiting, and pressed her hands against
the floor.  She’d never been any good at push-ups, yet she managed one.  Well,
half of one, her knees came up to help her the rest of the way.  “I’m moving,”
she told the monster.  She hoped this satisfied him.  The more she appeased
him, the less he went prodding around inside her mind.

Bonetta Harper
said, “You…you okay, girl?”

“Girl,” she says
.
 
So
we’re supposed to be friends now?

Kaley made no
reply.  She stood up on wobbly legs.  She felt as though she’d been raped
herself, as though she’d been drugged, as though she’d been clubbed over the
head repeatedly.  A migraine started just behind her eyes and traveled to the
back of her brain.  She staggered and touched the wall for support.  When she
did this, a thrill went up her arm, and she felt the torment of others who had
imbued the wall with their essence, their fears, their torment.  She pulled her
hand away quickly, and then warded her heart as best she could.  Kaley then
tested the wall by touching it again, tentatively at first, with only her
fingers.  The charm didn’t assault her this time, and the migraine started to
abate.

“You okay?”
Bonetta asked again.

And again, Kaley
made no reply.  She sighed a quivering sigh, and turned around and around,
taking in the room.  Her eyes, whether on purpose or by accident she didn’t
know, finally landed on the vent cover she had been going for only minutes ago.
 
A camera?
she thought.  The monster had suggested as much.  It made
sense, she supposed.  They would have to monitor their captives somehow.

You can control
what they see
,
the monster had said. 
Or, at least, what they
think
they see
.

“Bonetta,” she
said.  “Come here.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m okay. 
Just…just come over here.”  The charm was still strong enough that she felt the
swelling power of Bonetta’s trepidation, but eventually the girl overcame it
enough to stand up from the corner and approach.  She still squeezed her locket
hopefully, though.  “Come here,” Kaley said.  Bonetta stopped just short of
her, as if afraid to catch a disease from her, and Kaley started whispering. 
“I want you…to come over here and give me a hand.”

“A hand with
what?”

“I know how to
pick locks,” Kaley said.  And all at once, she knew that the monster had to be
right.  Not only did it make sense that there would be cameras watching them,
but just think about the
timing
!  Olga, Dmitry, and Mikhael had all come
in at once, at the exact moment that Kaley had been looking up at the vent, at
the
exact
moment that she had been convincing Bonetta to give her a hand
getting up to it.

Guilt threatened
to destroy her.  They had come and taken Little Sister away because of her! 
They had come and taken Shan and…done things to her. 
All because I tried to
escape
. 
I had to be so damned smart
. 
What’ll they do to her if
they think I’m trying to escape again?

Then came the
monster’s words. 
You’re doin’ it again
. 
Thinkin’ of others when ya
oughtta be workin’ on a way out
.

Kaley felt like
arguing, but knew that it was no use.  The monster was inexorable.  He would
continue taunting her from an impossible distance, and she would never be able
to touch him or punish him for it.  “Not unless I get out of here,” she said. 
Bonetta looked at her strangely.

That’s the
spirit!
he said.

Bonetta looked
her up and down.  “Who’re you talkin’ to?”

Kaley
swallowed.  “Nobody.  Now, come over here and stand by the doorknob.”

“What?  Why?”

“Just do it. 
I’ve got a hairpin here,” she said, improvising before she realized it.  She
had pulled it out of her hair.  In truth, she had no idea how to pick a lock,
but as she approached it, she realized that she did.  Kaley bent one of her
hairpins to be the torsion wrench, and bent the other one so it could act as a
rake.  She wondered how she knew how to do this.

Because
I
know how
to do it, my precious
, said the monster. 
That’s somethin’ I didn’t
count on
. 
I meant for you to fake it, but if you can do what I can do,
then go for it
.

Kaley wanted to
deny it, because it meant that she and the monster were…conjoined.  Bonding
this empathically with another human being was not a pleasant experience. 
Emotions were good.  They were powerful and fueling, but what emotions the
monster had were too intense.  The important ones were missing—love, hope, sympathy—and
in their place was the most concentrated selfishness.  A person must be selfish
to some degree in order to take care of oneself, but in this instance…there was
too much…it…

Would you say it
cloys
?
asked the monster.  A nauseating humor came over her.  He saw everything.  She
was naked before him, and him her.  But whereas she had shame, he had none.

Kaley slipped
the two hairpins into the lock, and started working on the tumbler.  She had
never known how a tumbler worked, but for the moment she did.  There was more
to skills like lock picking than just knowing the names of things and the
concepts of a technique—one had to have a certain finesse with the hands, there
was muscular control involved, the tiniest of movements from one finger to push
this way or correct that way without
over
correcting.  Additionally,
there was even a pattern of breathing involved in order to help maintain focus,
a habit that many skilled people picked up while doing whatever it was they
were good at without knowing they were doing it.

What surprised
Kaley, and would surprise her for decades to come, was that she didn’t just
know the concepts of lock picking.  For a time, for that window of her life,
her muscles, lungs, and focus were that of an expert picker.  She
was
the monster.  He fed her, whether he knew it or not.  The monster knew his
thieving craft, no one could ever deny him that.  And he had drive.  A will. 

Out of nowhere,
Kaley was reminded of an old
Star Trek
episode.  Ricky had been fond of
old sci-fi—Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Douglas Adams—and both Kaley and Shan
had been subjected to his interests, and made to watch
Lost in Space
,
Battelstar
Galactica
(the old version), and others with cheesy special effects.  In
one episode of
Star Trek
, she recalled the guy with the pointy ears says
to the captain of the starship
Enterprise
, “Jim, madness has no purpose,
and no reason.”  Then, he ominously adds, “But it may have a goal.”

You were right
about that, Mr. Spock
,
Kaley thought, her hands working furiously at something that felt utterly
natural. 
It does have a goal
.  She felt the slimy humor of the
monster.  He had detected her morbid critique, and he relished it.  He was
closer now.  Their Connection felt stronger.  Kaley almost reached out for
Shannon, to speak with her, to comfort her…and immediately she stopped
herself.  Or maybe it was the monster stopping her, pulling back on her reins
like a rider on a horse. 
Don’t think that way
. 
That way lies your
end
.  She wasn’t sure if that was her voice, the monster’s, Shan’s or even
Nan’s.  Either way, it sounded like good advice right now.

Ward yo’ heart,
chil’
. 
Definitely Nan that time, but was it really her speaking from the ether or was
Kaley just losing her mind?

So lost in
thought was she that at first she didn’t really take note of the sharp
click!
that signaled a finished job.  Kaley felt it more than she heard it, and she
knew that she had successfully picked all five of the tumbles in the door lock.

Kaley turned the
doorknob, and the door parted slightly.  She turned and looked at Bonetta, who
was wide-eyed and daring to hope.  That hope cascaded over Kaley and emboldened
her.

Good job
, the monster
said.  She could feel the sinister delight.  He was happy that his plan was
coming together, not in the saving of her life or anyone else’s. 
I’m on my
way
. 
And, if I’m right about that camera,
they
are too
. 
Prepare
yourself for the fight o’ yer life
.

“I’m ready,”
Kaley said, both to him and to Bonetta.  She looked at the Harper girl and
said, “Are you?”

At first, it did
not appear so.  Bonetta looked at the door, then back at the room that had been
their prison.  No doubt she was recalling the weapons and superior strength and
numbers of their enemies, and weighing that against the thought of possibly remaining
here forever.

“Bonetta,” Kaley
said, and for the first time found (quite by accident) that she could reach out
and
change
others via her charm.  Like a child maturing with its
newfound gifts of balance and dexterity, Kaley had stumbled upon a way to
manipulate Bonetta’s emotions.  She groped for her attachment to her father, to
her anger that day on the playground, and fortified Bonetta with it. “Bonetta,
if you stay here, you won’t just be a prisoner.  You’re a future victim, girl. 
They gonna kill you.  You know that, don’t you?”

Silence in the
room.  Any moment now, the Oni’s (as Kaley had started thinking of this fucked
up family) would be coming down the stairs for them.  Finally, the large Harper
girl looked back at her and said, “Let’s get the fuck outta here.”

Together, they stepped
out of the prison, and into the Rainbow Room.

“Attention all
units,” said dispatch.  “Five-oh-three reported at the Keegan Corporation on
Mansell Road.  A stolen yellow Penske truck was taken off the lot.  Suspect’s
description matches that of Spencer Adam Pelletier, wanted in multiple murders
and a shooting that wounded a police officer earlier tonight.  All units in the
vicinity, please respond.  Consider armed and extremely dangerous.”